A Concise History of the Middle East

26 • 2 The Middle East Before Muhammad Mecca Most of central and northern Arabia kept a precarious independence. In times of pea ...

Conclusion ••• 27 reflects our training (especially the languages that we learn), you, as a stu¬ dent first learning about the M ...

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THREE The Prophet of Mecca Around 570 an Ethiopian army marched northward from Yemen with a baggage train of elephants and tried ...

30 • 3 THE PROPHET OF MECCA revelations to Muhammad) tells us a little about his formative years. Early Muslims, amassing all th ...

Muhammad's Early Life ••• 31 toward monotheism, known as Hanifs. But Mecca's merchants, profoundly practical, scoffed at such no ...

32 • 3 THE PROPHET OF MECCA When the earth shall quake with a predestined quaking, When the earth shall bring forth her burdens, ...

Muhammad's Early Life • 33 Even if the early Muslims had kept a low profile, they would have at¬ tracted the notice—and hostilit ...

34 • 3 THE PROPHET OF MECCA This accommodation shocked many Muslims. When Muhammad realized what he had done, he denounced what ...

The Emigration (Hijra) ••• 35 Yathrib's two pagan tribes had grown so bad that they could no longer pro¬ tect themselves against ...

36 • 3 THE PROPHET OF MECCA revelations, which now were becoming known as the Quran, repeatedly called Abraham a Muslim, a man w ...

The Emigration (Hijra) ••• 37 caravan returning from Syria, just as Mecca was dispatching a retaliatory army of almost 1,000 men ...

38 • 3 THE PROPHET OF MECCA forms of extramarital sexual relations were also accepted. Seeking to limit this license, the Quran ...

The Emigration (Hijra) • 39 Aisha bint Abi-Bakr A isha, Muhammad the Prophet's third, and reportedly favorite, wife is one of th ...

40 • 3 THE PROPHET OF MECCA The one-day fast of Yom Kippur ceased to be obligatory, and Muslims started fasting instead during t ...

Assessment • 41 converts during that pilgrimage in 629. The next year, claiming that some clans had breached the terms of the Hu ...

42 • 3 THE PROPHET OF MECCA observant Jews and sincere Christians do not believe, as Muslims must, that Muhammad was obeying God ...

FOUR What Is Islam? When we think about Islam—or any religion that has lasted for a long time—we should remember that it has evo ...

44 • 4 WHAT IS ISLAM? What is God? To Muslims, God is all-powerful and all-knowing, the cre¬ ator of all that was and is and wil ...

Basic Beliefs • 45 prophets. These words have been turned into books: the Torah of the Jews (consisting of the first five books ...